More Than Dollar Coins and Disney: Native Women Warriors

Indian women are conspicuously absent in U.S. history. When asked to name some famous Indian women, most people have difficulty in recalling anyone other than Pocahontas and Sacajawea. Both of these women have legends which are more based in non-Indian fantasies about Indian women than in the reality of their accomplishments. For both, their fame is based on their association with non-Indians.

In fact, when the Europeans first began arriving on this continent, they found to their amazement that Indian women were very much unlike European women. Indian women were not subservient to men, they often engaged in work–such as farming and warfare–that the Europeans viewed as men’s work; they had a voice in the political life of their communities; and they had control of their own bodies and sexuality. Unlike the patriarchal Europeans, Indians were often matrilineal–a system in which people belonged to their mother’s clans or extended families. When Indian people spoke of a neighboring tribe as “women” or as “grandmothers,” the Europeans often misinterpreted this compliment as a derogatory statement.

By the nineteenth century, Indian women, and particularly Indian women leaders, had become invisible to the American government. Some Indians have gone so far as to say that the Americans were so afraid of Indian women that they would not allow them to sit or speak in treaty councils with the United States government.

Europeans have always viewed war as “men’s work” and their interpretations of Indian warfare, as seen through the writings of non-Indian historians and anthropologists, assume that only Indian men were warriors. They often fail to see that women warriors were common among Indian people, such as these five famous nineteenth-century warriors:

Fallen Leaf (often called Woman Chief by the Americans): Though Fallen Leaf became famous as a Crow warrior, she was actually born to the Gros Ventre nation and was captured by the Crow when she was 12. After she had counted coup four times in the prescribed Crow tradition, she was considered a chief and sat in the council of chiefs. In addition to being a war leader, she was also a good hunter and had two wives.

Running Eagle: She became a Blackfoot (Piegan) warrior after her husband was killed by the Crow. To avenge her husband’s death, she sought help from the Sun and was told “I will give you great power in war, but if you have intercourse with another man you will be killed.” After this she became a very respected war leader and led many successful raids on the large Flathead horse herds west of the Rocky Mountains. She was killed on a raid in Flathead country. As legend goes, she had had sexual relations with one of the men in her war party, and for this reason had lost her war power.

Colestah: Colestah was a famed medicine woman, psychic and warrior. Armed with a stone war club, she rode into battle with her husband, Yakama leader Kamiakin, and fought at his side. In the 1858 battle of Spokane Plains in Washington, Kamiakin was nearly killed when a howitzer shell hit a tree and the tree branch knocked him from his horse. Colestah rescued him and then used her healing skills to cure him.

Buffalo Calf Robe (aka Calf Trail Woman): Buffalo Calf Robe performed one of the greatest acts of valor in the 1876 battle of the Rosebud in Montana (in which U.S. troops commanded by General Crook, along with their Crow and Shoshone allies, fought against the Cheyenne and Lakota Sioux). The Shoshone and Crow shot the horse of Cheyenne Chief Comes in Sight out from under him. As the warriors were closing in to finish him off, Buffalo Calf Robe, the chief’s sister, rode into the middle of the warriors and saved the life of her brother.

Moving Robe: One of the best-known battles in the annals of Indian-American warfare is the 1876 Battle of the Greasy Grass in Montana, where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was defeated. One of those who lead the counterattack against the cavalry was the woman Tashenamani (Moving Robe). Lakota warrior Rain-in-the-Face descriebs her attack (and implies that Lakota women led attacks):

Holding her brother’s war staff over her head, and leaning forward upon her charger, she looked as pretty as a bird. Always when there is a woman in the charge, it causes the warriors to vie with one another in displaying their valor.

Native Indian women warriors are the unsung sheros of America’s past, and their bravery and strength in battle show they had a deeper impact on history than Sacajawea coins and Disney films presume.

Comments

And don't forget Wilma Mankiller, in recent years head of her tribe (Cherokee). And Nancy Ward, who fought the Creeks, Weetamoo of King Philip's War, Awashonks, and on and on and on. I find the stereotype that the only Indians were Plains Indians a bit irritating.

One woman warrior of today is Caleen Sisk. She is the Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem band of the Wintu Nation of Northern California. Her Great Aunt Florence Jones was the Chief and Spiritual Leader before her. These are great women, powerful, well respected and loved by all. Caleen is struggling with the US Forest Service and the Gov. to secure sovergn rights to protect sacred sites and to have traditional ceremonies in PEACE and DIGNITY

I am a Licensed Social Worker and Licensed Psychotherapist and our Native Roots go way back and cross tribal lines. I am from Northern California and we have fought for our sisters and brothers of the Ohlone Tribe as well as others along the Central Coast and farther north where I worked for United Indian Health in Crescent City, Klamath and Smith River, officers in three locations and I truly miss living up there. We must continue to fight to hold on to all tribal land, I am a warrior, was born a warrior and will always be, Our older daughter is an artist and our younger daughter nickname Little Thunder is only 10 but her Warrior Spirit is one she embraces, I joke that she fought herself out, Of course our older daughter is a Warrior too, she manifests it differently, her art, her kindness of heart, ability to see the truth from all sides and decide what is right for her, cutting of ties with traitors, probably because we always told them “never get bit by the same dog twice,” She was born with wisdom, inner, balance, those are traits. Our Warriors are not ignorant either, both are 4.0 students in every grade. There are so many stereotypes and they mostly get it wrong, Please let me know of actions, I will pass word to our tribal communities and I KNOW that all would support this movement.